As a needle used for a medical practice such as temporary securing of a venous path, a winged indwelling needle has conventionally been known, which comprises a hollow needle, a hub for holding a rear end of the hollow needle, and a pair of wing-shaped members formed integrally with the hub. When the winded indwelling needle is used, a medical personnel such as a doctor or a nurse first removes a protector attached to the hollow needle, grips the pair of wing-shaped members in a superposed manner, and then sticks the hollow needle into a vein of a patient. Then, he fixes the hollow needle by opening the pair of wing-shaped members, and pasting them to a body surface of the patient by adhesive tape or the like.
After used, the winged indwelling needle is pulled out, and disposed of. In this case, if the hollow needle is exposed, the medical personnel or a worker engaged in disposal (abbreviated to medical personnel, hereinafter) may stick the hollow needle into a finger or the like accidentally (abbreviated to accidental sticking, hereinafter). Here, if the patient suffers from an infectious disease such as HIV or acute hepatitis, there is a possibility that the medical personnel may be infected with the disease through the hollow needle.
Conventionally, in order to prevent such accidental sticking, recapping has been carried out, which attaches the protector removed before the use again to the used hollow needle. The conventional protector has a hollow cylindrical body provided with a length equal to that of the hollow needle. Accordingly, the recapping is carried out by approaching the protector and the hollow needle to each other in an extended direction of the hollow needle, and inserting the hollow needle from its tip into an opening end of the protector.
However, in the protector, since fingers gripping the protector are positioned in a moving direction of the tip of the hollow needle, a problem may occur, i.e., accidental sticking of the finger by the hollow needle during the recapping.
In order to solve the foregoing problem, Japanese Patent No. 3198492 discloses a winged indwelling needle, which comprises a hollow needle, a holder, into which the hollow needle is inserted, and protruded from a tip, and a pair of wing-shaped members provided in the holder. In the disclosed winged indwelling needle, a hub provided at a rear end of the hollow needle is freely engaged with the holder, and the hollow needle is protruded from the tip of the holder while the hub is in the engaged state with the holder. Accordingly, the winged indwelling needle can be fixed by sticking the hollow needle protruded from the tip of the holder into a vein of a patient, and by opening the pair of wing-shaped members and pasting them to a body surface of the patient.
To remove the hollow needle, the hollow needle is housed in the holder by disengaging the hub from the holder while the wing-shaped members are pasted to the patient, and retreating the hub. Thus, the holder becomes a protector of the hollow needle, which can prevent accidental sticking.
However, in the winged indwelling needle described in the Publication, in order to disengage the hub from the holder, the holder must be held by one hand, and a disengaging operation must be carried out by the other hand. Consequently, inconvenience, i.e., a difficulty of operation without use of two hands, still remains.